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Good news about the Pill!

20/05/2011

This week – some good news about contraception – and also how to alter the timing of your periods for your holidays.

As every women who has ever been on it knows, remembering to take a contraceptive pill, every day, isn’t always that easy. Lots miss one occasionally, and up until now, the guidelines on what to do about this have been scarily confusing.

But no more!

There are lots of different type of contraceptive pill, and the new guidelines apply to those containing oestrogen and progesterone, the ones you take for 3 weeks, followed by a week off. Popular brands include Microgynon, Cilest and Yasmin ( though there are loads more ).

Doctors have been aware for ages that missing one pill, in the middle of a packet, hardly ever led to a pregnancy. It’s missing lots of pills that is the problem. At long last, this has been recognized by the senior bods who make the rules, and now the official line is that if you miss one pill, you don’t need to do anything other than take it as soon as you remember.

But if you miss two pills, then you should use condoms for the next 7 days. During this time it’s really important to carry on taking your pills as usual. 

The other good news concerns starting the pill in the first place. Up until now, if you wanted to go on the Pill, you had to wait until the beginning of your next period, ideally starting it on the first day, and no later than day 5 of bleeding. Now, you can start the pill at any time - as long as you are sure you aren’t pregnant – but if it’s after the fifth day after your period started (sorry if that sounds complicated) then you need to use condoms for the first seven days.

That’s particularly good news at this time of year, as going on the Pill can be a really good way of altering the timing of your period, so you don’t find yourself coping with pads and tampons in the middle of your summer holiday. 

To change when you period occurs, your simply carry on taking the pill as long as you need, starting a second packet without the usual seven day break. You can then time exactly when you want your period to occur – either one week, two weeks, or three weeks later.  If you want, you can do this more than once, and reduce the number of periods you have over the summer. But don’t be tempted to take the pill for less than 3 weeks at a time – never stop a packet early.

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